OJR board looks to save on energy costs during school renovations

SOUTH COVENTRY—The Owen J. Roberts School board is looking at ways to save money on energy costs as it plans for renovations of the East Coventry and East Vincent Elementary schools.

The district is planning to renovate East Coventry and East Vincent Elementary schools at an estimated cost of $34 million, beginning first with East Vincent by the end of 2013 and completing both buildings by fall of 2016. Students from both schools will move into East Vincent for the 2015-16 school year.

The board has contracted with Johnson Controls Inc., of Plymouth Meeting, to provide an energy consultation plan for the renovation projects at a cost of $32,791 in an effort to reduce the overall costs of operating the two buildings. Johnson Controls has been working with the district over the past several years to institute a number of energy conservation measures in all district buildings, including installation of a solar powered energy system on the high school and middle school roofs last year.

Phil Solomon, account executive for Johnson Controls, presented several recommendations at a recent school board buildings and grounds committee heard. Chief among them was a suggestion that the board use natural gas to heat the East Vincent Elementary School, despite the fact that extending the gas line, located about a mile away, would add a $500,000 expense to the project. That cost would be balanced out by an anticipated savings of $1.6 million over 20 years, when compared to the cost of the proposed oil-fired hot water system, Solomon said.

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“It’s clearly a good decision to use gas to heat the building,” said Solomon.

However, several other alternative energy options offered little or no cost savings. Solomon noted that installing gas driven chillers to cool the building would cost about $800,000, as opposed to $322,300 for electric chillers. The savings over a 20-year period would add up to $34,000, which was not adequate to justify the initial hefty expense, Solomon said.

Similarly, there would be little cost savings involved in installing solar voltaic panels, which would add $75,000 to the project, but yield only about $129,000 in reduced energy costs over 20 years.

Solomon also recommended against adding more windows and skylights to increase daylighting to the East Vincent Elementary School because, again, the slim savings of about $400-$800 a year would not justify the added expense. Instead, he suggested that the school would be better served by installing lighting occupancy sensors and encouraging staff and students to be energy efficient with lighting.

The recommendations relate only to East Vincent Elementary School, which will be renovated first and is currently being designed by Architect Jeffrey Chambers. Solomon is working closely Chambers in developing energy efficient models, and will continue to make recommendations on both buildings as the design progresses.

According to Solomon, it is important for school district’s to consider the long-term energy costs of all operating systems during any construction or renovation project.

“Sometimes you can make a very poor choice because you were never given information about the long-term costs of running a system,” Solomon said. “You can end up with the lowest cost system that has the highest operational costs.”

About the Author

Laura Catalano is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in books, magazines and newspapers. She is a frequent contributer to The Mercury, for which she writes news, features and a monthly column. She lives in Pottstown and works for the Schuylkill River Heritage Area. Reach the author at LauraC802@aol.com
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